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Ed Boon on why Freddy Krueger for Mortal Kombat

Ed Boon, the creator of Mortal Kombat, has explained why A Nightmare on Elm Street's Freddy Krueger was chosen as the fourth DLC for Mortal Kombat instead of other slasher film icons.

In an interview with the PlayStation US Blog, Boon stated, "It's kind of hard to choose a character who would fit well into the Mortal Kombat universe, with the blood and violence that's so associated with it. Kratos from God of War is a brutal, bloody character, so he makes sense."

The villains of Friday the 13th and Halloween were considered, but Freddy was pegged as the most interesting, "A number of names were run by us: Jason, Michael Myers and all those guys. Freddy Kreuger, we felt, was the most instantly recognisable and he fits in with Mortal Kombat with his claws. It just seemed like the best fit."

It wasn't the first time someone like Freddy was looked at.

"Over the years, we've certainly had a number of conversations about guest characters. At one point, we had a conversation about having a group — imagine Freddy, Jason, Michael Myers, Leatherface from Texas Chainsaw Massacre — of all these killers from the '80s and '90s flicks come in as a group of characters," Boon continued. "We never got a grip on how we would do it, whether they'd be DLC characters or what. But yes, we've had lots of conversations over the years.

"We also wanted to introduce a character who was unexpected. This DLC thing opens the doors to realising these ideas."